French official arrested for selling state secrets for Bitcoins

Summary:

• Bitcoin market share falls to 52%

• Google Chrome to be better shielded against mining malware

• DASH breaks below the wedge pattern

Wednesday’s trading on the cryptocurrency market started in downbeat moods. Most of the major coins are trading substantially lower. Capitalization of 2017 different cryptocurrencies ranked at CoinMarketCap moved below $215 billion while Bitcoin dominance declined to 52%.

Bitcoin’s market share has been continuously declining during the past three weeks. Source: Macrobond, CoinMarketCap, XTB Research

Alphabet announced that a number of changes is coming to its Chrome browser. The changes mostly concern the development of extensions for Chrome and are aimed at boosting security of its users. The improved security features will be able to better protect users against unwanted malware that is sometimes attached to the extensions. Following the outburst of cryptocurrency craze such malware often included hidden mining devices as well as tools used to steal cryptocurrencies. The improved security will definitely be praised by the cryptocurrency traders as given lack of regulations as well as high degree of anonymity that accompanies cryptocurrency transactions it is close to impossible to retrieve stolen coins. The impact of reduced mining operations will most likely be insignificant as a bulk of cryptocurrency mining comes from high-profile companies specializing in such type of activities.

Bitcoin prices is approaching short-term upward trendline. Potential bounce higher could be limited by the resistance zone $6710-6790. Source: xStation5

One of the officials working for the French Direction Generale de la Securite Interieure (French intelligence agency) has been taken into custody recently on the back of selling state secrets. The intelligence agent was reportedly stealing economic information as well as falsifying administrative documents and later on selling classified informations via Bitcoin transactions. Right now it is not known whether he was selling aforementioned secrets to the terrorist organizations but it was confirmed that he was trading with organized crime and parties interested in obtaining confidential economic informations. The suspect faces seven years in jail as well as 100 thousand euro fine in case the allegation are confirmed.

Dash has broken below the wedge pattern recently. The $163.50 handle could be potential support level. Source: xStation5

Wall Street Journal reported that cryptocurrency prices are highly manipulated. This is certainly not new as the issue was raised by SEC when it rejected several Bitcoin ETF applications. However, what is quite interesting in WSJ report are views of cryptocurrency industry members. While a lot of them point to price manipulation as a potential hurdle for the broader expansion of financial instruments based on cryptocurrencies some do not see anything unusual or wrong in it. Kjetil Eilersten, a trader cited in the article, is a person responsible for developing Quatloo Trader, a tool that enables manipulating prices. Eilersten claims that trying to outlaw price manipulation schemes is pointless and instead it would be better to provide everyone with tools that enable such behaviour. He claims that once everyone will be manipulating, no one will be manipulating. Lack of regulations in cryptocurrency sphere allows such persons to speak out loud about their unethical behaviour and do not face any consequence for manipulating. While Eilersten may have a point to some extent, a wider adoption of cryptocurrencies is unlikely to occur as long as price manipulations are a common thing.